Beyond the gaze of us Brits, you might wonder why, given the market-leading diesel engines that the company makes, BMW has been dabbling in the global market for petrol-electric hybrid luxury cars. The truth is that some of the biggest car markets in the world remain all but closed off to diesel-engined cars. Petrol hybrids are therefore particularly important in a global sense.

The ActiveHybrid 5 appears ahead of hybrid 3 and 7 Series models and all will use the same parallel hybrid powertrain, which promises to combine limited zero-emissions, electric-only running with diesel-challenging real-world economy, allied to the kind of distinguishing performance we have all come to expect of a BMW.